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Anyone On The Internet Can Control This Family's Christmas Light Display

DannyGallagher

Christmas lights seem like such an outdated piece of technology. Bulbs attached to wires are practically in the same league these days as the butter churn and the handheld lantern that can burn down your house if you leave it too close to the curtains. A couple in Fairbanks, Alaska however may have found the perfect way to bring the Christmas light display into the 21st century by way of the internet.

Ken and Rebecca-Ellen Woods of Fairbanks, Alaska have a rather simple looking light display on their two-story, log cabin style home. They have lights running around the roof trimming, windows and doors and even a couple of wreaths that light up randomly. However, these blinking lights aren’t being controlled by a breaker or an electronic timer. They are being controlled by the Internet.

The Woods hooked up all of their lights to a website called ChristmasInFairbanks.com that anyone can visit and use to control the light display of their home. They also have a special webcam set up that shows the house in real time (with a tiny delay of a few seconds, depending on your bandwidth). This is actually the sixth year that the Woods have set up a publicly controlled Christmas light display and each year, it just keeps getting bigger and bigger. It started with a simple tree display and this year, they decided to do the entire house because, according to Ken Woods, “It was super annoying in the middle of the night.” Welcome to the Internet, Ken.

Thankfully, they can’t see the lights from inside the house and they don’t have neighbors to call and complain that all they can see when they shut their eyes are red, green and blue lights.

The light display may be impressive but the fact that it keeps getting bigger and bigger, however, is a little concerning. Someone on the Internet is bound to find a way to make their Christmas light display showcase some kind of pornography.